1. Field of Patent Application
The present patent application is generally directed to metering medicine dosages, and particularly to dosing spoons to be used for administering accurate suspension medicine dosages.
2. Background
Dosing spoons are generally known. Such spoons are especially used for medicaments that may be self-administered by a patient. For example, a patient suffering from an ailment may require a certain amount of a liquid drug, and may use a dosing spoon to properly measure the exact amount of drug to take.
Dosing spoons are typically configured with bowls intended to hold a particular dosing volume, such that when a drug substance is filled to the top or peripheral edge of the spoon bowl, the desired amount of drug will be present. Water is often used as the measuring medium to determine the size and shape of the spoon bowl for a desired volume of substance. However, not all substances share the same density as water, and some substances are either more or less dense than water. The relative density is the ratio of density of a substance to the density of a given reference material. The term specific gravity is often used to mean the relative density with respect to that of water. The drug Tussionex®, for example, has an approximate relative density to the reference material water (i.e., specific gravity) of 1.1300-1.1700. Thus, the drug Tussionex® is denser than water.
When filled to the brim or top edge of a spoon, substances that are more dense than water will maintain more surface tension than water would, and will form a dome or an arc, raising above the plane formed by the top edge. This means that if the substance is filled to the top edge of the spoon bowl, there will actually be more substance in the spoon bowl than the amount intended to be delivered to a patient. Thus, due to the dome effect, a patient may be overdosed with a liquid drug.
Administering the exact dose is quite important, since the administration of a potentially incorrect dose of a medicament could result in injury or even death. Thus, one object of the present invention is to provide an improved dosing spoon which will afford improved means for precise measurement of the dosage of drugs comprising certain densities to be administered.
Another issue that arises with such dosing spoons is one of manufacture. During the manufacturing process, the spoon bowls tend to mate within each other, resulting in a “nesting” phenomenon. Each spoon bowl may be essentially friction-fit with the spoon bowls on either side, and it may be quite difficult to remove each spoon from its nested position. The process of separating and packaging the spoons is so difficult that it typically requires them to be manually packed. The ability for the spoons to be de-nested quickly and freely onto factory conveying equipment so as to allow for the packing process to be automated, repeatedly and without error, is an important factor in the cost effective and efficient running of a factory.